We spend a good portion of our segment looking at Fox’ coverage of the World Series. Fox has been promoting improved ratings over last year. But the ratings had no where to go than up after last year’s Fall Classic registered the lowest ratings in history.

We delve into the length of games and how those on the east coast have a difficult time staying up to watch games that end near midnight.

We also look back at how Fox’ practice of focusing on crowd shots between pitches cost them during Game Four when they missed the pick-off play at first in the bottom of the ninth inning which ended the ball game.

We wrap up the news segment looking at the tenth anniversary of the NFL Network and the report from the New York Times on how the NFL was looking to sell a stake in the network to ESPN.

Our second guest this week is long time ABC Sports producerDoug Wilson who has a new book out entitled The World was Our Stage: Spanning the Globe with ABC Sports. Ken talks with Doug about his many decades with ABC, including his recollection of his relationships with the likes of Jim McKay and Roone Arledge as well as his time working ten Olympic Games for the network.

With Ken Fang of Fang’s Bites and I being avid Red Sox fans, we hope you can understand why we have an abbreviated version of Sports Media Weekly this week on the doorstep of game one of the World Series.

We begin the show discussing this year’s Fall Classic, the last for Fox Sports analyst Tim McCarver. The three of us acknowledge that McCarver may not be as sharp an analyst as he once was, but I, for one, applaud his long broadcasting career.

We next tap into Tom’s expertise in asking whether the Dodgers have taken some of the luster off the Lakers shine as being the most-favored professional team in southern California.

We resume our talk from a few weeks ago about the naming controversy surrounding the Washington Redskins by examining how much damage ESPN College Football Gameday analyst Lee Corso may have caused by appearing in war paint and native American dress in picking Florida State to beat Clemson last Saturday.

We conclude the show looking at the final pieces of ESPN’s NBA Countdown being put in place with the announcement that Sage Steele will serve as host of the Friday and Sunday editions of the show.

We begin the show by tapping into Paulsen’s vast knowledge of ratings numbers as we dissect the reported success to date of Fox and TBS during their coverage of Major League Baseball’s playoffs.

We do the same with the NFL, which, although still king of the hill in ratings, is seeing decreases in viewership on some networks thus far over 2012. In our discussion we also bring up the report in the Wall Street Journal that the NFL may be looking at adding an additional Thursday Night game to the schedule.

We move on to the changes ESPN has been making to the NBA Countdown crew, led by the departure last week of Magic Johnson.

We wrap the show by looking at how ESPN and Turner have been trying to get out of telecasting NASCAR in 2014, the last year of its contract before NBC and Fox take over the rights exclusively in 2015.

We begin the program looking at the successes thus far of TBS on its coverage of Major League Baseball’s postseason. The numbers for the network are higher than 2012, even without an appearance by the New York Yankees.

Next we look at the emergence of the NBC Sports Network (NBCSN) as the leader when it comes to televising the NHL. Since the time NBCSN was known as OLN and Versus the network has found its niche in being the United States home for hockey.

We wrap up the segment by looking at the impact of how Peyton Manning’s hot start has been reflected in the early-season NFL ratings.

Ken takes over the second half of the show speaking with CBS Sports host Adam Schein. Ken talks with Adam about his work on That Other Postgame Show, NFL Monday QB, and SiriusXM Radio.

We begin the show by previewing the coverage of Major League Baseball’s post season. We all agree that even though many of the announcing assignments are unchanged this year, the one game wild card playoff aspect of the post season does bring with it an added level of excitement.

We switch to the NFL and CBS’s announcement that NFL Today analysts Boomer Esiason, Bill Cowher, and Shannon Sharpe will move from the studio to the booth for one week during next Sunday’s action. If it were another sport other than the NFL then these moves may have more significance than they do.

We next ask Neil to bring us up to date with the state of sports coverage in New York, now that the Yankees and Mets are finished for the season; the Giants and Jets don’t seem to be going in any positive direction; and the winter sports season hasn’t really gotten started in any meaningful way.

Our second guest this week is Red Sox television play-by-play voice Don Orsillo. Ken speaks with Don about his work with the Sox on NESN, his upcoming playoff stint with TBS; and even culinary arts.

We move to Barry’s home state of Texas next and discuss the sorry state of the Houston Astros, whose game registered a 0.0 rating on Comcast SportsNet Houston this past Sunday. Poor performance on the field usually equates to poor performance in the ratings game.

We then talk about the state of sports radio in Dallas, where 1310am The Ticket continues to have amazing success, winning the ratings game and a Marconi Award despite it’s weak over-the-air signal.

We wrap the news segment by looking at the travails of Craig James, former ESPN college football analyst and failed U.S. Senate candidate, who lasted one night as a college football studio analyst with Fox Sports Southwest.

Our second guest this week is Jen Royle, who is one month in to her new gig as co-host of a sports radio program on Boston Herald Radio. Jen talks with Ken about her new job, as well as her work on SportsReel Boston and other media outlets in Boston.

We begin the show by looking at the news out of CBS this week announcing that Greg Anthony and Clark Kellogg will be swapping roles on the network’s coverage of college basketball. Anthony will move to the sidelines along side Jim Nantz while Kellogg will return to his previous role as studio analyst.

Next we see through the release earlier this week from ESPN showing their viewership increases for the past month beginning August 17th…ironically the same day Fox Sports 1 launched. Coincidence…we think not. We follow with the news from Steve Lapore of SB Nation that Fox Sports 1 has begun tinkering with its line-up.

We shift gears to online journalism and the news of the Bleacher Report‘s recent roster moves to bolster its NBA coverage. The most notable hire was of Howard Beck, formerly of the New York Times.

We close the segment by looking at the apparent apology from the CBS affiliate in Orlando seeking in forcing viewers there to watch the away games of the Jacksonville Jaguars as required by the NFL.

For the second half of the show Ken talks with Michelle Beadle of NBC Sports. Michelle is very candid about the changes made to her show The Crossover and talks about her ideas for expanding her role at the network.